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“I’m in Search of a Beauty Doctor for My Cakes of Paint” 





Laboratories 
That Turn 
Losses to 
Profits 

by 


Forrest Crissey 


) 



Ralph Fletcher Seymour 
Publisher 

line Arts Building 


Chicago 


























Copyrighted 1919 
by 

FORREST CRISSEY 




©CI.A529537 


JUN I a 1919 

/v\\$ 


\ 




LABORATORIES THAT 
TURN LOSSES TO 
PROFITS 

MONG American business 
men the notion has long per¬ 
sisted that, though chemists 
and laboratories are all right 
for the great industrial giants, they are 
doubtful luxuries for smaller concerns. 
This conviction that the benefits of ex¬ 
pert chemical advice are logically beyond 
the reach of the small and struggling fac¬ 
tory has been a costly error for the indus¬ 
tries of this country as a whole. Many 
a promising manufacturing enterprise 
has either led a starved and stunted ex¬ 
istence or has gone down in defeat for 
lack of the assistance to be had from a 
good industrial chemist. 

3 






4 


Laboratories That Turn 


The prevailing opinion that the little 
fellow in the manufacturing field cannot 
afford to secure this kind of scientific 
help is fast changing to the contrary con¬ 
viction that it is likely to prove about 
the cheapest and most profitable service 
he can buy. Almost every day sees a 
larger percentage of comparatively small 
manufacturing concerns spending good 
money for laboratory assistance. Often, 
if not generally, the pressure of some 
acute emergency is required to bring the 
courage of the small manufacturer up to 
the point where he is willing to invest in 
a little laboratory research. 

Here is a case typical of hundreds of 
others illustrating the common course by 
which industrial chemistry gets its re¬ 
cruits from the ranks of the small manu¬ 
facturers in this country: 

Two young Italians, who had worked 
in a small but successful macaroni fac¬ 
tory in the East, started an enterprise of 
this kind in a Western city. Their drier 
was an exact reproduction of the one in 



Losses to Profits 


5 


the plant where they had worked. The 
product of their little factory was en¬ 
tirely acceptable to their market; and, as 
both these young Neapolitans were hus¬ 
tlers and were well located, their busi¬ 
ness grew in the course of a few years to 
a point where they faced the necessity of 
providing a much larger output. 

Consequently they built an addition to 
their factory and installed a drier of large 
capacity, calculated to take care of all the 
expansion they could reasonably expect 
in the next few years. The new drier 
was modeled after the one that had given 
them such satisfactory service from the 
very beginning of their business. 

Probably one of the greatest strains to 
which the true Neapolitan temperament 
was ever subjected was exerted when the 
two partners made the discovery that the 
product of their new drier was so far in¬ 
ferior to that of the old one as to spell 
failure for them unless the trouble could 
be corrected. Instead of being hard and 
brittle, and breaking with a long fracture, 



6 


Laboratories That Turn 


the tubes of macaroni from the new drier 
were green and semi-elastic, with the re¬ 
sult that they were both unacceptable for 
immediate use and were prone to mold 
and spoil. 

An Italian Climate to Order 

O NE alteration after another was 
made in the equipment of the new 
drier, but without producing any marked 
improvement in the product. This period 
of hit-or-miss experiment extended over 
several months, the proprietors growing 
more desperate with every passing week. 

Finally they took one of their most in¬ 
telligent customers into their confidence 
and he advised them to consult a leading 
chemical engineer, whose laboratories 
were located in Chicago. He warned 
them that probably the fee would not be 
small and that satisfactory results could 
not be guaranteed. As it was clear to 
them that they were facing financial 
ruin, they decided to accept the alterna¬ 
tive, take the chances, and see what lab- 



Losses to Profits 


7 


oratory science could do for a macaroni 
drier and its product. 

The chemical engineer first satisfied 
himself that the failure of the product 
was not due to any defect in the mate¬ 
rials used—which were found to be of 
the highest quality—but that the fault 
must lie in the curing alone. He then 
defined his problem by saying that it was 
up to him to create, inside of that drier, 
an ideal Italian climate which could be 
relied upon to remain the same day after 
day. This he finally succeeded in doing, 
securing a combination of heat, humid¬ 
ity and air velocity that was practically 
“foolproof,” and that cured the macaroni 
as perfectly as if it was dried in the sun¬ 
shine and breezes of Italy. 

Naturally, any attempt to convince 
these two Neapolitans that industrial 
chemistry is either impractical or too ex¬ 
pensive an aid for the small manufac¬ 
turer would be so much wasted breath. 
They look upon the laboratory of the 
consulting chemist to whom they ap- 




8 


Laboratories That Turn 


pealed for help very much as a rescued 
seaman might look upon the life-saving 
station whose crew had saved him when 
he seemed ready to sink. 

The failure of a manufacturing process 
is not the only whip that drives the small 
manufacturer to what he is inclined to 
consider the doubtful expedient of em¬ 
ploying a chemist to solve his most 
pressing problems of production. The 
lash of strong competition is often an 
equally powerful stimulant of interest, 
on the part of the small and struggling 
manufacturer, in the possibilities of the 
chemist as a thrower of business life 
lines. 

One morning, in the spring preceding 
the outbreak of the European war, a cer¬ 
tain young man, not long out of college, 
made the interesting discovery that an 
ice-cream business had been wished on 
him by way of a mortgage foreclosure. 
It was in dire need of first aid in the form 
of a bit of energetic business manage¬ 
ment. He decided to step into the breach 



Losses to Profits 


9 


himself and see what he could do by way 
of pulling the business out of the hole. 

In a few weeks he discovered that the 
most careful management was required 
to turn out a high-grade product and sell 
and distribute it at a profit. In spite of 
the high cost of cream, he managed to 
make a reasonable profit until the pas¬ 
tures began to give out in the fall and 
cream made a corresponding advance. 

A little exercise with a lead pencil 
showed the young adventurer in the ice¬ 
cream business that the winter trade 
must be supplied at a loss, and that he 
had the choice of three courses: He must 
borrow the money to finance the winter’s 
loss on the basis that he could get it back 
again when the price of cream again 
dropped to the summer level; or he must 
sell out to a competitor on decidedly dis¬ 
advantageous terms; or he must discover 
some new way by which he could manu¬ 
facture winter ice cream at a cost not 
materially greater than that which his 




10 


Laboratories That Turn 


product had stood him through the sum¬ 
mer. 

Each of these roads seemed to be 
blocked by an almost insurmountable 
obstacle. It would be hard for him to in¬ 
duce a bank to lend him enough money to 
carry his business over a losing season; 
his banker had already made that quite 
clear. The obstacles in the way of the 
second course, that of selling out and re¬ 
treating from the field, were the facts that 
he was not an easy quitter and that his 
pride prodded him on to make a success 
of this enterprise in which a relative had 
scored a failure. As to the third ex¬ 
pedient, that of discovering some means 
of bringing the manufacturing cost of 
winter ice cream down to the summer 
level, that path seemed to end in a rain¬ 
bow lettered large with the word Im¬ 
possible ! 

He was morally certain that his com¬ 
petitors, operating on a much larger 
scale, would be well satisfied if their win¬ 
ter’s business paid its own way. How- 



Losses to Profits 


11 


ever, they were in a much stronger posi¬ 
tion financially and could tide the busi¬ 
ness over the winter without feeling any 
particular strain. Though he knew that 
the way of discretion was to sell out and 
acknowledge his defeat with such grace 
as he could command, it was impossible 
for him to bring himself to choose a 
course so humiliating. 

Being young, a college man, and a firm 
believer in modern forces and methods, 
he determined to see whether science 
could not show him a way out. There¬ 
fore he went to a prominent consulting 
chemist and put his troubles on the table. 
To his surprise, the chemist remarked 
that unless he was greatly mistaken he 
had cracked many a harder nut. 

The laboratory man worked by process 
of elimination and soon reduced the prob¬ 
lem to this plan: 

The price of powdered milk remained 
the same in winter as in summer; in 
other words, it rests upon the cost of pro- 




12 


Laboratories That Turn 


duction in the cheapest season of the 
year. Sweet or unsalted butter, held in 
cold storage, can usually be bought in 
winter at a price quite low when com¬ 
pared with the winter price of fresh 
cream. 

Problems in Ice Cream and Bone Dust 

CC TT LOOKS to me,” announced the 

X laboratory man, “as if the job be¬ 
fore us is simply that of finding a way of 
mixing powdered milk, distilled water 
and sweet butter together into a first- 
class article of cream. If this can be 
done by a process that is not in itself 
expensive you ought to be able to make 
winter ice cream as cheap as your sum¬ 
mer product made from fresh cream, or 
perhaps a little cheaper.” 

The riddle was solved by the develop¬ 
ment of a simple machine that combined 

* 

these elements under high speed, making 
them into a permanent emulsion that 
when frozen a connoisseur could not tell 
from the finest ice cream made from nat- 




Losses to Profits 


13 


ural cream. There was nothing cheap 
about the product except its cost of man¬ 
ufacture. The powdered milk furnished 
the solids, while the sweet butter brought 
the fat content up to any desired stand¬ 
ard. In order to give his product an ex¬ 
tra selling point this young manufacturer 
saw that it was made just a little richer 
than the ice cream marketed by his com¬ 
petitors. 

As a result of his adventure into the 
field of industrial chemistry, this young 
manufacturer turned the winter of his 
discontent into a season of larger profits 
than he had secured in the summer, and 
made almost sensational strides in the 
way of getting new business. For some 
time his competitors were at a loss to 
understand how he was able to undersell 
them in the winter; but when his biggest 
competitor sent samples of the young 
man’s winter cream to a consulting 
chemist the secret was soon out. 

To take a common nuisance—a clear 
legal liability—and turn it into a steady 



14 


Laboratories That Turn 


cash income is certainly an achievement 
that is bound to command the respect of 
the most sordid and practical mind. In¬ 
dustrial chemistry has done this not 
once but scores and hundreds of times. 
It might almost be said that this is the 
favorite parlor trick of the modern chem¬ 
ical engineer. 

An example of this peculiar form of 
laboratory service is furnished by the ex¬ 
perience of a manufacturer of bone but¬ 
tons. The town in which he located his 
enterprise was eager to secure the fac¬ 
tory. After the plant was built and had 
been in operation a short time, the ardor 
of the inhabitants cooled and the authori¬ 
ties began to threaten the button manu¬ 
facturer with damage suits and with 
prosecution for maintaining a common 
nuisance. 

The cause of this reversal of public 
sentiment was apparent to the eye of the 
most casual visitor in the town. The en¬ 
tire landscape within a radius of several 
blocks from the factory was covered with 




Losses to Profits 


15 


a coating of fine white dust. This, of 
course, came from the factory blowers, 
into which the dust from the polishing 
rooms was collected by suction. As a 
consequence of steadily discharging this 
volume of minute dust particles into the 
air the town took on a ghastly gray color, 
and the trees and shrubs began to die. 

When the coating of bone dust thick¬ 
ened upon the entire town the situation 
of the manufacturer became more acute. 
He reminded the real-estate men that he 
had urged them to give him a location 
on the opposite side of the town, where 
the prevailing winds would have carried 
the dust off into the country, instead of 
drifting it upon the town. 

The members of the committee with 
whom he had dealt retorted that if he 
had explained why he wished to locate 
on the other side of town they would 
have broken off the negotiations and re¬ 
fused to have the factory at all. 

Every day of delay increased the depth 
of the pestiferous dust coat on the local 





16 


Laboratories That Turn 


landscape and increased the animosity of 
business men and housekeepers, who re¬ 
sented the despoiling of their goods and 
chattels and the peril to public health. 

In sheer desperation, however, he 
wrote to one of the firms from which he 
had bought certain features of his equip¬ 
ment and was, in turn, advised to employ 
a chemical engineer. It was suggested 
that possibly a certain technical school 
would send a young man who could work 
out the problem. As his situation was 
daily becoming more desperate, he made 
haste to try the first chemist suggested 
by the school, though the head of that in¬ 
stitution took pains to emphasize the fact 
that the young man in question was 
without much industrial experience, and 
that satisfactory results could not be 
guaranteed. 

The Young Chemist's Thrilling Results 

A FTER the chemist had been at work 
for a fortnight the owner of the 
factory called him into the office and 



Losses to Profits 


17 


asked for a report on results. He was 
both astonished and discouraged on be¬ 
ing told that it might take months of 
patient digging and experimenting be¬ 
fore anything practical would result. 
However, the manufacturer knew that 
his case was one of extreme necessity and 
so he told the young man to go ahead 
with his investigations and push them as 
rapidly as possible. As a stimulus to 
haste he named a substantial bonus that 
would go to the chemist in case he 
worked out a practical solution of the 
dust problem. 

Fortunately this young man possessed 
an almost ideal temperamental equip¬ 
ment for his profession, in that he had 
almost as good a gift for mechanics as 
for chemistry. This was his first big op¬ 
portunity and he worked night and day 
to make good at it. Besides, he needed 
that bonus in his business. At times it 
seemed to the button manufacturer that 
the young scientist was perversely slow 



18 


Laboratories That Turn 


and that his experiments amounted to 
little more than childish pottering. 

But one day, when the owner of the 
factory returned from a trip to New 
York, the air in the vicinity of the plant 
seemed to be a little peculiar. He quickly 
noted that the wind was blowing from 
the usual direction; if things were nor¬ 
mal he ought to inhale enough bone dust 
with every breath to send a stranger un¬ 
accustomed to the local atmosphere, into 
a fit of coughing. But there was no dust. 
The hope raised by this condition was 
fully verified by what he found on enter¬ 
ing the factory. 

The device for capturing the fugitive 
dust particles, which had been installed 
on the day he had left for New York, 
had worked almost perfectly. It was 
plain to the harassed button manufac¬ 
turer that he had nothing further to fear 
from the town authorities, as the cause 
of their complaint was now completely 
removed. 



Losses to Profits 


19 



The Chemist Called the Attention of the Manufacturer to 
the Fact that This Dust Could be Used as the Chief 
Element in a Highly Concentrated Plant Food 

“You get the bonus; and you’re 
mighty welcome to it!” he told the chem¬ 
ist as he reached for his check book. 

“But,” remarked the young man, “I 
have told you only part of the results. 
Here is a written report covering the 
quantity of dust accumulated each day, 
and I think you will be surprised to see 
how much it will total for a month at the 






20 


Laboratories That Turn 


present rate of deposit. This dust is just 
the thing for the manufacturer of the 
finest kind of plant food known to the 
fertilizing industry. Attached to my re¬ 
port you will find an offer for this dust 
that looks decidedly good to me.” 

The cash income from this peculiar 
by-product was not only sufficient to pay 
all the costs of the investigation and de¬ 
velopment work, but also to continue the 
chemist upon other problems—particu¬ 
larly those intended to make the factory 
a healthier place in which to work. 

This has been the experience, on a 
larger scale, of almost every cement fac¬ 
tory in the country. Until a process for 
capturing the great outpouring stream of 
minute dust particles from works of this 
nature was devised, the surrounding 
landscape was desolated, and the health 
of all who came into contact with this 
sinister deposit from the atmosphere was 
injured or imperiled. 

A method of securing large quantities 





Losses to Profits 


21 


of potash from this captured dust has 
been perfected and standardized by the 
chemists, who have wrestled with this 
problem and turned a public peril and a 
legal liability into a substantial source of 
income. 

Few features of industrial laboratory 
work are more fascinating than its serv¬ 
ice in improving the sanitary quality of 
products for household or personal use. 

The feather pillow of commerce affords 
an excellent case in point. A certain pil¬ 
low manufacturer, with a decidedly pro¬ 
gressive streak in his make-up, became 
disgusted with conditions that seemed to 
obtain in the very best product, and 
which had long been accepted by the 
whole trade as inevitable. This manufac¬ 
turer, however, could not bring himself 
to accept these conditions as incurable. 
He reasoned that, because of the intimate 
contact of a pillow with the human face 
for several hours of every day, it ought 
to be sanitary in the strictest sense of the 
term. On the other hand, he knew that 




22 


Laboratories That Turn 


this was far from being the case. First¬ 
hand observation showed him that a pro¬ 
cess of disintegration was industriously 
at work breaking down the structure of 
feathers in a pillow. 

The result of this process was a mi¬ 
nutely fine dust, capable of working its 
way through the fabric of the pillow and 
its case. Naturally this means that more 
or less of it must be inhaled by the per¬ 
son using the pillow. The fact that 
large quantities of pillow feathers are 
imported from China and from other for¬ 
eign countries did not tend to make this 
consideration any more tolerable to the 
manufacturer, who abhorred the idea of 
dealing in an article he did not consider 
as really sanitary. 

If he had to breathe the dust of disin¬ 
tegrating feathers, he preferred those 
from American poultry yards to the 
Oriental article, grown under conditions 
of filth and unwholesomeness repellent 
to the people of this country. 



Losses to Profits 


23 


This ambition to produce a strictly san¬ 
itary feather pillow led the aggressive 
young manufacturer to appeal to a con¬ 
sulting chemist of high standing. The 
laboratory work resulted in an inexpen¬ 
sive chemical treatment of the feathers 
at the time of their renovation, which 
practically put a stop to the subtle proc¬ 
ess of disintegration. In other words, 
feathers subjected to this treatment be¬ 
came almost dustless. In a commercial 
way this meant not only a pillow of im¬ 
mensely improved sanitary standard but 
also a decided extension of the life of the 
feathers. 

Industrial chemistry seldom gives 
what may be called single results. The 
fruits of this science seem to come in 
clusters or in pairs. The solution of the 
pillow-dust problem was no exception to 
this rule. The chemist who succeeded in 
solving the problem of pillow dust called 
the attention of the manufacturer who 
employed him to the fact that this dust 
could be used as the chief element in a 



24 


Laboratories That Turn 


highly concentrated plant food much in 
demand for greenhouse use—a fertilizer 
at once odorless and powerful. While 
this manufacturer is immensely proud of 
the fact that the pillows he places on the 
market are practically dustless, his 
monthly income from the sale of feather 
dust amounts to a material sum. The 
explanation of this is that the dust is 
removed from the supply of feathers 
bought in the open market and from 
those in used pillows sent to him for ren¬ 
ovation. 

Of course the greatest benefit this 
manufacturer received from his invest¬ 
ment in a little laboratory science was 
the improvement in the standard of his 
product. It gave him a selling argument 
that was supported by fact and experi¬ 
ence. 

In this connection it should be remem¬ 
bered that anything which will infuse 
this kind of blood into the veins of a 
selling organization is cheap at almost 




Losses to Profits 


25 


any price to a manufacturer operating 
upon a large scale. 

To be able to furnish an article to the 
trade that is indisputably superior to 
competing products, and that can be 
furnished at the same price, is a rare 
privilege in manufacturing experience. 
This progressive pillow manufacturer 
can speak in large figures from the right 
side of the ledger as to what it means in 
the matter of increasing the volume of 
business without sacrificing the fraction 
of a per cent in profit margin. His busi¬ 
ness has gone ahead by leaps and bounds 
ever since he convinced the trade that he 
is supplying a sanitary, dustless pillow. 

The Troubles of a Paint Maker 

O NE of the most persistent problems 
with which the manufacturing in¬ 
dustry has to deal is that of making its 
product stand up under the varying con¬ 
ditions encountered in a wide geograph¬ 
ical distribution. This endurance test 
applies not only to intrinsic merit and 




26 


Laboratories That Turn 


life of service, but to appearance as well. 
Many times the success of a product 
turns upon this point of appearance alone. 
In many instances the industrial chem¬ 
ist, the laboratory expert, is the one who 
decides this commercial contest and tips 
the scales on the right side by supplying 
the missing element that prevents the 
appearance of the product from breaking 
down under unfavorable climatic condi¬ 
tions, or other adverse influences . that 
could hardly be taken into consideration 
at the outset of manufacture. 

The experience of a maker of water 
colors of the sort commonly used in the 
public schools illustrates this type of 
emergency most clearly. This manufac¬ 
turer had no training in chemistry, but 
he considered that several years of expe¬ 
rience in the mixing room of a large color 
house was the only preparation needed 
for a successful career in the manufac¬ 
ture of school water colors. He held that 
he was thoroughly practical, and was 
perhaps a little inclined to look upon 
chemists as scientific theorists. 



Losses to Profits 


27 


When he sent out his little boxes of 
water colors the cakes “looked good 
enough to eat,” and had all the finish and 
brilliance of the best colors with which 
they came into competition—those put 
out by much larger concerns, which had 
long been in this special field. 

His selling organization was good and 
almost immediately his product secured 
a wide distribution. With the coming of 
the hot season in the South, however, his 
troubles began. The retail dealers began 
to return his boxes of colors, with highly 
critical comments. Only the most casual 
glance at the little cakes was necessary 
to disclose why the storekeepers were 
sending them back with such unfriendly 
remarks—the surface of each cake was 
covered with minute crackles, which in 
many instances had developed into sur¬ 
face cracks. 

So long as the cakes remained intact 
they were just as usable as when they 
first left the factory; but their peculiar 
appearance rendered them quite as unsal- 



28 


Laboratories That Turn 


* 

able as if they had granulated into the 
fine powder from which they were made. 
Despite his pride in the practicalness of 
his training, this manufacturer knew that 
it was up to him to work a radical change 
in the ability of his product to stand up 
under diverse climatic conditions, and to 
do this with all possible speed. As he 
put it to the head of the laboratory to 
which he was sent by his head salesman: 

“I’m in search,” he declared, “of a 
beauty doctor for my product. I’ve got 
to have something that will ward off 
wrinkles and preserve the satiny cheek 
of youth in my cakes of paint. If you 
can’t accomplish it for me I guess I’ll 
have to go out of the business. Beauty 
may be only skin deep; but I’ve had a 
mighty costly lesson on the text that if 
my product can’t keep its good looks it 
has about as little chance in the market 
as a woman with a ruined complexion 
and a million wrinkles has to capture a 
husband where satin skinned debutantes 
are as thick as automobiles in Los An¬ 
geles.” 




Losses to Profits 


29 


In a shorter time than he himself had 
hoped, the chemist was able to offer the 
manufacturer a clear solution of his prob¬ 
lem. He had developed a process of 
combining the necessary materials under 
pressure instead of mixing them with 
water. Laboratory tests demonstrated 
that these cakes would stand a high de¬ 
gree of heat without showing the slight¬ 
est tendency to crackle. Sample cakes 
were submitted to experienced artists, 
who reported that the colors worked 
freely and were satisfactory in every 
way. 

The business disaster this manufac¬ 
turer faced was averted at almost the 
eleventh hour, and he gives the industrial 
chemist full credit for his rescue. 

A Baking Powder Mystery 

T HE manufacturer who has not had 
the product upon which his com¬ 
mercial reputation is based suddenly go 
back on him, through some mysterious 
and wholly unaccountable cause, is for- 



30 


Laboratories That Turn 


tunate. Common experience is decidedly 
of an opposite character. The selection 
of raw materials may be carefully cov¬ 
ered by specifications, and these supplies 
may be drawn from the same source, and 
still they will suddenly seem to have un¬ 
dergone an almost complete transforma¬ 
tion in their nature. The consternation 
caused in a manufacturing business by 
an occurrence of this kind is only to be 
appreciated by those who have fought 
through such an experience. It is guar¬ 
anteed to give symptoms of heart failure 
to the most successful and self-confident 
manufacturer. 

The very mystery that surrounds the 
eccentric behavior of materials in a situ¬ 
ation of this sort enhances the fear that 
is felt by all who are vitally concerned in 
maintaining the standard of the product. 
Perhaps this type of experience has 
served to send more small manufacturers 
to the laboratories of consulting chemists 
than has anything else. One reason for 
this is the fact that the manufacturer 



Losses to Profits 


31 


who prides himself upon being practical 
is inclined to feel that almost the whole 
problem in buying raw materials is that 
of finding concerns of the most scrupu¬ 
lous honesty and sticking to them 
through thick and thin. Raw materials 
of almost every sort, however, are sub¬ 
ject to the most subtle changes, which 
creep in without publishing their pres¬ 
ence. 

Believers in “the depravity of inani¬ 
mate things” will find this field strewn 
with examples to support their theory. 
If raw materials were capable of intelli¬ 
gent conspiracy, to the end of breaking 
down the honorable reputation of the 
most upright men using and dealing in 
them, they could scarcely do more effec¬ 
tive work in that direction than they 
have done in thousands of cases that 
have sent factory owners in consterna¬ 
tion to the laboratories of industrial 
chemists. 

One of the most celebrated consulting 
chemists in the city of New York illus- 



32 


Laboratories That Turn 


trates this line of experience with the fol¬ 
lowing incident: 

One day a highly excited man was ad¬ 
mitted to his office and opened the con¬ 
versation with the statement that, unless 
the laboratory could give him quick and 
certain aid, his business would be ruined. 

Then he explained that he had for 
years been in the business of making a 
brand of baking powder, which had built 
up a splendid reputation among its users 
on its merits alone. Before starting in 
this business he had been a workman in 
another baking-powder plant, where he 
had learned the trade. 

From the start, his chief concern had 
been to get the very best of raw mate¬ 
rials, and to secure them from a source 
having the highest reputation for hon¬ 
esty and dependability. He had contin¬ 
ued to buy all the ingredients of his bak¬ 
ing powder from the same firm with 
which he had started at the beginning of 
his business. 



Losses to Profits 


33 


Suddenly, out of clear skies, his goods 
began to come back to him from every 
direction—caked solid in the cans and 
containers! In his consternation he con¬ 
fessed that he had never employed a 
chemist and that he was a little inclined 
to be suspicious of them. But now he 
was “in the last ditch”; and he appealed 
to this science to pull him out. So far as 
he knew, his materials and his processes 
were identical with those he had used for 
years, which had given his baking pow¬ 
der a really enviable reputation in the 
trade. Yet express wagons and drays 
were bringing back to him hundreds of 
cans of the stuff, caked solid. 

The chemist made an immediate sur¬ 
vey of the plant and satisfied himself 
that the owner had stated his case with¬ 
out reservation. In a surprisingly short 
time the trouble was located. The starch, 
which formed the body of the powder, 
contained a too high percentage of mois¬ 
ture, and this was what started the stuff 
upon its normal course of chemical ac¬ 
tion. 




34 


Laboratories That Turn 


Just how this disastrous surplus of 
moisture had crept into the starch the 
manufacturer of that article was unable 
to explain; however, the havoc that had 
been wrought by this surplus humidity 
had the effect of making a new and stead¬ 
fast convert to the ranks of students of 
applied chemistry. 

Often the integrity of employees is put 
under laboratory test. In such cases, 
however, the chemist doing the work is 
generally unconscious of the moral prob¬ 
lem involved in his investigation. Here 
is an occurrence that gives a graphic il¬ 
lustration of how this question of per¬ 
sonal loyalty can be sent to a test tube 
for determination: 

The principal reagent used in galvaniz¬ 
ing iron is sulphuric acid. This power¬ 
ful acid bites rust and every other im¬ 
purity from the surface of the iron and 
leaves it chemically clean. Without this 
treatment, the thin coating of secondary 
metal—usually tin or zinc—will not stick 




Losses to Profits 


35 


to the iron. A purchasing agent, repre¬ 
senting a large galvanizing concern in 
the East, bought three carloads of sul¬ 
phuric acid at what he believed to be a 
bargain price. He sent it to the works 
and was greatly astonished, a little later, 
to be summoned to headquarters because 
the acid would not act properly on the 
iron. The coating would not stick to the 
iron—and that was all there was to it! 

The atmosphere of the conference was 
decidedly electric, and the superintendent 
told the purchasing agent to take the 
three carloads of worthless stuff and send 
them back to the firm from which they 
had been bought. Also, the superintend¬ 
ent intimated it would be difficult for 
anybody to put over so raw a deal as that 
on him. 

Instantly the purchasing agent re¬ 
torted that not a carboy of the acid 
should be touched until the stuff had 
been subjected to chemical analysis in a 
laboratory entirely independent of the 
plant. He took no pains to conceal his 




36 


Laboratories That Turn 


conviction that the superintendent had 
been bribed by the makers of the acid 
which they had been using before. Ap¬ 
parently the superintendent held an 
equally unflattering conviction concern¬ 
ing the purchasing agent. 

The general manager recognized that 
the best interests of the concern de¬ 
manded that the suggestion of the pur¬ 
chasing agent should be followed, and 
the whole problem was submitted to an 
independent chemist for a careful test, 
which would vindicate one or both of his 
immediate subordinates. 

Almost immediately the consulting 
chemist found that the sulphuric acid 
contained a high percentage of arsenic, 
which had settled in a thin film upon the 
iron and had prevented the secondary or 
“coat” metal from sticking. The pres¬ 
ence of the arsenic had not been discov¬ 
ered because it was almost the same 
color as the iron. The findings of the 
laboratory were highly satisfactory in 
the respect that they cleared the skirts 




Losses to Profits 


37 


of both the purchasing agent and the su¬ 
perintendent of any suspicion of having 
been “reached” by firms selling sulphuric 
acid. On the other hand, this delay had 
held up production and put the factory 
in an uncomfortable position as to its de¬ 
liveries. The outcome of the experience 
was that the purchasing agent added a 
new term to his specifications regarding 
sulphuric acid, this amendment reading: 
“Free from arsenic.” 

Why the Batteries Came Back 

O NE of the most startling of all ex¬ 
periences due to the presence of an 
unsuspected element in a raw material 
fell to the lot of a large manufacturer of 
battery cells of the small type used in 
flashlights. This American manufacturer 
secured a single European order for 
more than a million of these cells. In 
the manufacture of dry batteries man¬ 
ganese peroxide ore is a standard mate¬ 
rial. Practically the entire supply of this 
ore, so far as American manufacturers 






38 


Laboratories That Turn 


were concerned, came from the mines of 
the Caucasus Mountains, in Russia, up 
to the time when the great European 
war began. This calamity, of course, in¬ 
stantly stopped the influx of this ore and 
compelled the United States to look else¬ 
where for its supply of this material. 

Beyond the fact that this Russian ore 
contained eighty per cent or more of 
manganese and only one per cent less of 
iron, the battery makers in America 
knew little of its characteristics or of 
why it suited the purpose of use in bat¬ 
tery cells so perfectly. So long as it gave 
them no trouble whatever and they could 
get an unlimited supply of it, they were 
content to let their knowledge of man¬ 
ganese ore remain at a minimum. 

When the Russian supply of mangan¬ 
ese ore was shut off this particular man¬ 
ufacturer of battery cells began to look 
about in the market; and finally he found 
an ore from South America that seemed 
to fill his requirement of a content of 
eighty per cent or more of manganese 
and one per cent or less of iron. 




Losses to Profits 


39 


Of course no manufacturer would be 
foolish enough to ship a million units of 
his product across the ocean without first 
subjecting them to a thorough test—es¬ 
pecially when drawing his main raw ma¬ 
terials from a new source. The batteries 
made of this new South American man¬ 
ganese worked perfectly in the factory 
test, and were sent to the other side 
without a question as to the satisfaction 
they would give. 

When the manufacturer received a 
cable from his big European customer 
saying that the battery cells would not 
work, that they were all rejected and 
were being sent back at the shipper’s ex¬ 
pense, the entire factory organization 
felt the worst jolt it had ever received. 

There was nothing to do but await the 
arrival of the returned goods. 

Meantime samples of the ore were sent 
to a metallurgical chemist of the highest 
standing and were subjected to analysis. 
He told the manufacturer that, though he 
believed he had discovered the secret of 



40 


Laboratories That Turn 


the trouble, he would suspend judgment 
until the arrival of the batteries them¬ 
selves. 

“I have found,” he explained, “a very 
small percentage of copper in the ore 
analyzed; but it is so minute—ten to fif¬ 
teen one-hundredths of one per cent—it 
seems almost incredible that this should 
have caused the mischief. 

An examination of the battery cells, 
however, showed conclusively that this 
chemist had hit upon the reason why the 
batteries would not work. Though pres¬ 
ent in an almost infinitesimal amount, 
there had been just enough copper to 
form a delicate film over the zinc, caus¬ 
ing increased resistance, so that the full 
volume of electricity was not properly 
delivered. 

No American manufacturer who has a 
million batteries thrown back on his 
hands by a European customer is going 
to continue to “go it blind” any longer 
so far as a thorough scientific examina¬ 
tion of all his raw materials is concerned. 



Losses to Profits 


41 


One lesson of that kind is ample. This 
concern is now going ahead on the basis 
that the time to lock the barn door is be¬ 
fore the horse is stolen. In other words, 
it is making a consistent effort to use in¬ 
dustrial chemistry to prevent losses in¬ 
stead of to explain them. 

In this time of sensational prices com¬ 
petition in buying has reached the acute 
stage in almost every line of manufac¬ 
ture. This is especially true in the field 
of metals; and when a supply of mate¬ 
rial of this kind is offered on the market, 
at a price that gives it a distinct advan¬ 
tage, it inevitably becomes an object of 
suspicion. At least, where the amount 
of the purchase is likely to be large, the 
value of the material must be vindicated 
by a laboratory test. Chemists and lab¬ 
oratories, like courts and lawyers, thrive 
on suspicion. Though there would still 
be a certain demand for their services if 
all men were intentionally honest, their 
volume would be immensely reduced by 
a realization of ideal business morality. 



42 


Laboratories That Turn 


As this millennial condition appears to 
be decidedly remote, the consulting in¬ 
dustrial chemist finds that a large num¬ 
ber of his clients are forced to seek his 
advice because of a suspicion that the 
goods offered are not exactly as repre¬ 
sented. 

Not long ago a large manufacturing 
concern, using an immense amount of 
babbitt for the bearings of shaft journals 
—to the end of reducing wear and fric¬ 
tion—sent a sample of the metal to a 
consulting chemist, along with the speci¬ 
fications that this composition was sup¬ 
posed to satisfy. Later other samples 
were submitted. The letter of transmis¬ 
sion intimated that the price at which 
this particular metal was offered was so 
much lower than that of all others com¬ 
ing in competition with it that it would 
be well to make the test so searching that 
the determination should be beyond 
doubt. 



Losses to Profits 


43 


The Secret of the Cheap Babbitt 

T HESE instructions were carried out 
to the letter, and the chemist re¬ 
ported that the metal analyzed complied 
fully with the specifications. Not only 
this, but it was found to compare favor¬ 
ably with the competing samples sub¬ 
mitted for analysis. 

In spite of this showing, the purchas¬ 
ing agent was loath to change his source 
of supply without giving the concern 
from which he had long bought his bear¬ 
ing metal an opportunity to meet the 
competitive price. 

“I can demonstrate to you,” declared 
the maker of the bearing metal from 
whom the purchasing agent had been in 
the habit of buying, “that the raw mate¬ 
rials going into the composition cannot 
be bought on the market to-day at the 
price at which this competitor offers you 
his finished product. You say that you 
can buy this stuff ten cents a pound less 
than my price. I should lose a lot of 
money at that figure, and you can bet 



44 


Laboratories That Turn 


your last dollar there is a nigger in the 
woodpile somewhere.” 

The purchasing agent had the uncom¬ 
fortable conviction that the metal dealer 
believed him guilty of playing a cheap 
and almost childish trick in an attempt 
to beat down the price of babbitt. So the 
buyer backed his statement by submit¬ 
ting the text of the low bid to the doubt¬ 
ing and disappointed dealer. Then he 
called in the author of the bid and said 
substantially this: 

“I’ll admit that your price is a whole 
lot lower than that of any other competi¬ 
tor, and that your sample conforms en¬ 
tirely to our specifications; but before I 
place this order with you, it is up to you 
to give me a convincing explanation of 
how you happen to be able to undersell 
your competitor to such a radical ex¬ 
tent.” 

“That’s easy,” came the quick answer. 
“I happen to employ a very keen chem¬ 
ist, who showed me how to beat the 
market on babbitt and still conform 



Losses to Profits 


45 


strictly to quality and specifications. Not 
long ago I had an opportunity to buy a 
big quantity of scrap tin at what seemed 
to me to be a very favorable price. Of 
course I was not going to take any 
chances on putting tin into my babbitt 
that might not turn out right; so I took 
a sample of the stuff to a consulting 
chemist and explained in detail the use 
for which it was intended. When he 
made his verbal report on the analysis of 
the stuff he wore a broad smile. 

Some Prize Problems 

66T "TE ASKED me whether I had not 
JlJL been able to buy this tin at a 
price which was lower than the virgin 
metal because it contained alloy. He 
had guessed the situation precisely. 
Then he told me that in this case the 
alloy happened to be antimony; and, 
therefore, I was getting quite an amount 
of antimony at a price very much below 
what I should have to pay for the pure, 
virgin metal. Your bearing metal is 



46 


Laboratories That Turn 


made of tin, antimony and copper—and 
consequently the copper and part of the 
antimony that go into your mixture are 
the only materials which cost me a nor¬ 
mal market price. This is how I can un¬ 
dersell my competitors ten cents a pound 
and still make a very little more profit 
than they would make at their bids. And 
this isn’t the first time, either, that a 
chemist has shown me the way to cut the 
corners in this business!” 

No reader should entertain the notion 
that industrial chemistry is mainly con¬ 
cerned with the process of testing mate¬ 
rials. Though it is true this is one of its 
standard and routine tasks, the fact re¬ 
mains that its big prizes, to which per¬ 
haps its most brilliant achievements are 
given, are in the realm of definitely con¬ 
structive work. Chemists freely admit 
that in this field some of the most re¬ 
markable achievements are apparently 
the fruits of chance and accident, rather 
than of reason and far-sightedness. 

This element of chance, in combination 




Losses to Profits 


47 


with the alluring size of the prizes and 
the opportunity to make intelligence and 
shrewdness count, gives to industrial 
chemistry all the thrill and fascination 
of the turf or the gaming table. 

Certainly it does not lack excitement— 
especially for those who are both experi¬ 
enced and ambitious. 

The head of a celebrated laboratory in 
the East tells this story: 

“In chemistry, as in everything else, 
we need the stimulus of a specific prize 
to draw out the best constructive work 
that is in us. The rawest laboratory re¬ 
cruit can make out a list of big industrial 
problems that need to be solved and that 
would bring wealth along with their solu¬ 
tion; but it takes a man of uncommon 
temperament to go out after one of these 
general prizes with anything approach¬ 
ing the enthusiasm and application that 
he gives to the problem which has been 
brought to him personally. 

“Well, our laboratory was just about 
cleaned out of what I should call prize 





48 


Laboratories That Turn 


cases when I was called into consultation 
with the active manufacturing head of a 
large tobacco company. He explained 
that he had started to put a new brand 
of cigarette on the market, and he wished 
to give it what tobacconists would call a 
rich ‘pound cake.’ This particular flavor, 
he explained, was characteristic of the 
best pipe tobacco, chewing tobacco and 
cigars sent out from his factory. But all 
the efforts of his most expert blenders to 
get this peculiar quality in cigarette to¬ 
bacco had been unavailing. He wished 
to retain me to attack this problem; and 
he named a large sum that would be paid 
as a bonus, in addition to the usual fee, 
if I could produce a cigarette tobacco 
that would have the true pound-cake 
flavor. 

“Here was something worth while go¬ 
ing after; I recognized at once that there 
was a big element of chance in the pur¬ 
suit of this prize; but this fact only in¬ 
creased the fascination of the chase. The 
tobacco manufacturer gave me a box of 



Losses to Profits 


49 


cigarettes made by another company that 
came fairly close to the ideal flavor he 
had in mind. 

“Analysis and the microscope quickly 
disclosed the ingredients of this mixture. 
They were duplicated and combined over 
and over again, but the flavor did not 
approach that of the sample. Patience is 
one of the prime requisites in a chemical 
laboratory, and consequently, as a mat¬ 
ter of course, we kept plugging away at 
this problem with unslacking persistence. 
One day, when we were apparently no 
nearer the solution of the problem than 
when we started, one of my assistants 
put some of the tobacco into a drying 
bath, and then became so absorbed in 
something else that he forgot all about 
it. When he discovered what he had 
done he was rather crestfallen, for a 
chemist is not supposed to let anything 
spoil for lack of attention. He fully ex¬ 
pected to find this particular batch of to¬ 
bacco completely spoiled; but when he 
tested it he gave an exclamation that 




50 


Laboratories That Turn 


brought everybody in the room to atten¬ 
tion. His accident had produced the pre¬ 
cise pound-cake flavor for which we had 
been striving! It had a rich, distinctive 
flavor, and was of a quality to make a 
sure appeal to the average cigarette 
smoker. 

“I took the ingredients, dried them 
separately, and made the vital discovery 
that licorice was used after it had been 
made hot. This was the secret of the 
rich flavor.” 

Once commercial chemists were large¬ 
ly engaged in making mysterious mix¬ 
tures, in concocting secret compounds 
from simple and inexpensive materials, 
which could be sold under impressive 
names at a huge profit. Many of them 
had merit and served the purpose they 
were supposed to serve; but their exor¬ 
bitant margin of profit was based upon 
their mystery rather than their merit. 
To-day the tide has turned and chemists 
are kept busy taking these compounds 
apart to see what makes them go, and 




Losses to Profits 


51 


incidentally to take the water out of their 
prices. Here is a case that clearly illus¬ 
trates this class of laboratory experi¬ 
ences : 

Seaweed in the Brewery 

A BIG Western brewer sent a quan¬ 
tity of jelly-like substance to a 
consulting chemist in New York and 
made this comment: 

“This jell is the only stuff I have been 
able to find that keeps my boilers free 
from the crust which forms from the wa¬ 
ter we are obliged to use; but the price 
the makers compel us to pay is becoming 
almost prohibitive. We use an immense 
quantity and the bill for this cleaner runs 
into big figures. The manufacturer 
claims, of course, that it is a secret com¬ 
pound and is costly to make. Somehow 
I suspect this isn’t so, and that a substi¬ 
tute can be made at a much lower cost 
which will do the work just as well. See 
if you can discover what this stuff is 
made of and how to beat its price with- 




52 


Laboratories That Turn 


out sacrificing any of its working value .” 

Soon the chemist reported that the 
compound was made almost wholly of a 
certain seaweed, very common on the 
Atlantic Coast, and that the cost of this 
weed was only a few dollars a ton. A 
large quantity of this seaweed was then 
secured and elaborate tests were made. 
It was discovered that it was not neces¬ 
sary even to cook the weed into jelly, but 
simply to put a certain quantity of it into 
the water of the boilers and when suffi¬ 
ciently cooked it would form the jelly 
which prevented the incrustation. 

The thrifty brewer at once made a con¬ 
tract with members of the Atlantic Coast 
Life-Saving Service to gather this weed 
after it had been thrown up on the shore 
by a storm, bale it and ship it to him by 
the carload. As the life-savers did this 
in their leisure time it was very inexpen¬ 
sive. The change from the barreled mys¬ 
tery to baled seaweed was decidedly 
economical. 

Another interesting phase of the in- 



Losses to Profits 


53 


dustrial chemist’s work as an unraveler 
of mysteries is in supplying missing links 
and restoring fragments of lost informa¬ 
tion. Secret processes and formulas are 
the every-day problems in this field of 
research. When the combination of 
furniture manufacturers took place it 
was found that the most successful pol¬ 
ishing material was made by an old em¬ 
ployee of one of the constituent com¬ 
panies. He realized that his opportunity 
had arrived and told the management of 
the consolidation that the mixing of the 
compound w r as his own secret, and would 
remain so until he was dead; that it had 
always been made in secret by his own 
hands and that he would divulge the 
process to no human being. 

On the other hand, a much greater 
quantity of the mixture was necessary to 
supply all the factories. It was agreed 
that the old man should receive a greatly 
increased compensation, but that he 
must write out his formula in full and 
deposit it, under seal, in escrow, with a 



54 


Laboratories That Turn 


trust company—to be delivered to his 
employers after his death. 

In the course of a few years the old 
man died and an official of the company 
appeared at the laboratory of a consult¬ 
ing chemist, laboring under great mental 
excitement. 

“Not even the old man’s assistant can 
make this formula work! I always 
thought old Fritz was the soul of honor 
and loyalty ; but-’’ 

“Perhaps,” interrupted the chemist, “it 
might be well to await developments be¬ 
fore questioning that conclusion.” 

When the chemist came to mix the 
preparation he discovered that a single 
element, which was so obviously neces¬ 
sary as to be almost self-evident, had 
been omitted from the old man’s form¬ 
ula. Clearly it had not been left out by 
intention, but rather because the old man 
had taken its use for granted. The dis¬ 
covery of this was the one vital thing 
that prevented the formula from dying 
with him. 




Losses to Profits 


55 


Boiled in the Wrong Kettle 

O ccasionally the researches of 

the industrial chemist bring strange 
commercial secrets to the surface. These 
are sometimes as contradictory as they 
are curious. A celebrated New York 
chemist tells this odd story: 

“One of the fascinating features of this 
profession is that its Pandora Box of sur¬ 
prises is never exhausted. Perhaps the 
oddest development that an analysis in 
my laboratory ever brought to light was 
the finale of a case brought in by a large 
dealer in molasses. This distressed food 
jobber had sent a large shipment of Bar¬ 
bados molasses to Newfoundland, where 
this sweet liquid is largely used as a sub¬ 
stitute for sugar and is a big staple of the 
regular diet of the fisherfolk. All my 
troubled client told me was that this big 
shipment was on the point of being sent 
back to him, on the ground that it was 
not Barbados molasses, and the consum¬ 
ers would not stand for it; and that he 
had submitted it to leading members of 


) > 



56 


Laboratories That Turn 


the trade in the United States, who pro¬ 
nounced it a very superior molasses. 

“As the sum the jobber was likely to 
lose was a large one, I went into the 
matter quite thoroughly and made deter¬ 
minations of almost every make of mo¬ 
lasses of which a sample was obtainable. 

“My analysis of the rejected molasses 
showed that it contained a slight trace of 
iron, while the analysis of a sample ob¬ 
tained direct from Barbados did not re¬ 
veal a trace of this element. Here was a 
lead that was instantly followed. Inves¬ 
tigation disclosed the fact that at that 
time only copper kettles were used in re¬ 
fining in Barbados, while iron kettles 
were in common use by the producers of 
New Orleans molasses. 

“Naturally the next question to be 
raised was why the presence of a slight 
trace of iron in molasses should render 
that sweet especially inacceptable to the 
people of Newfoundland. Instantly the 
fact that you cannot bring iron into con¬ 
tact with tea without producing a salt of 


c 

<• < 
< < 
t c c 



Losses to Profits 


57 



When He Went to the Dealer, That Crestfallen Merchant 
Made the Amazing Discovery, that He Had Substi¬ 
tuted the More Kxpensive Molasses 

tannic acid came to my mind. The New¬ 
foundlanders are inveterate tea drinkers; 
and an inquiry revealed the fact—which 
my client had neglected to mention—that 
sweetening tea with molasses is a com¬ 
mon practice among the people of the 
Newfoundland coast. 

“Here, to my sense, was the explana¬ 
tion of the whole trouble. I told the job¬ 
ber he would undoubtedly find that his 






58 


Laboratories That Turn 


unfortunate shipment was New Orleans 
molasses and had never seen Barbados. 
He responded that if the New Orleans 
article was cheaper, instead of higher, he 
could understand how and why this 
might be true. 

“When he went to the dealer from 
whom he had bought the stuff, that crest¬ 
fallen merchant made the amazing con¬ 
fession that he had substituted the more 
expensive New Orleans molasses because 
he wished to make so favorable an im¬ 
pression upon this big jobber that he 
would become a permanent customer. 
And his stroke of enterprise might have 
been a marked success had it not been 
for the trace of iron in the New Orleans 
product and the fact that Newfoundland¬ 
ers use molasses in their tea. Of course 
the overzealous dealer made good the 
jobber’s loss.” 

Let no manufacturer imagine that, to 
put an end to his production troubles, he 
has only to hire a chemist or install a lab¬ 
oratory. Even by its most ardent advo- 




Losses to Profits 


59 


cates, chemistry is not offered to indus¬ 
try as a cure-all for its entire line of com¬ 
plaints. It will not act as an automatic 
substitute for common sense; nor will it 
take the place of sound business manage¬ 
ment. It seems altogether likely that a 
large majority of the laboratories in¬ 
stalled in manufacturing plants in this 
country have been distinct disappoint¬ 
ments to their sponsors and builders. 

Probably no other American has done 
more than the late Prof. Robert Kennedy 
Duncan to induce chemistry and industry 
to come under the same yoke and pull 
together; yet this pioneer in co-ordinat¬ 
ing commerce and science made this 
startling statement: 

“Personal observation, however, for 
several years leads me to state that pre¬ 
sumably ninety-five per cent of so-called 
factory research is worse than loss— 
worse than loss because the failure of the 
individual instance places a finale on the 
possibility of that particular factory to 
understand the advantage of applied sci- 



60 


Laboratories That Turn 


ence. The normal failure that attends 
factory research is due to ignorance of 
the canons of judgment in choosing 
chemists, inexperience in dealing with 
them, and a general lack of knowledge 
of the facilities with which it is necessary 
to furnish them—laboratory, library and 
living facilities. I have met tragic in¬ 
stances of chemists possessed of high 
training, creative power and practical 
character, working under the most 
shameful conditions, burdened with rou¬ 
tine drudgery, subjected to the interfer¬ 
ence, and orders even, of factory fore¬ 
men ; and—what is even worse—working 
under an entire misapprehension and ig¬ 
norance on the part of the officials of the 
company as to their possibilities and 
value. I have seen them working under 
every circumstance of discouragement, 
inadequate facilities and bad treatment.” 

This authority as frankly admits that 
he has found corporations giving good 
opportunities to chemists wholly inade¬ 
quate and unqualified for their tasks. 



Losses to Profits 


61 


There are two types of distinctly 
industrial laboratories: That which is 
operated on a straight commercial basis, 
and that maintained by a manufacturing 
concern for its exclusive use. In the 
class first named are several very large 
and admirably equipped institutions of 
national reputation. Though they are 
operated for profit, they are semipublic 
in many of their characteristics. Next 
in this class come the consulting chem¬ 
ists, of all kinds and ranks, some of them 
maintaining laboratories larger than 
those of many a state university. To 
these must turn not only the small manu¬ 
facturer, with his pressing problems, but 
also the large manufacturer who wishes 
to check results reported by his own 
chemists, or who must have materials 
passed upon by an outside and impartial 
authority, whose decision will not be 
questioned. 

Any small manufacturer who feels 
himself moved to reach out, for the first 
time, for the aid of industrial chemistry, 



62 


Laboratories That Turn 


may justify his venture with two com¬ 
forting considerations: That the fruits 
of this science are generally cheap com¬ 
pared with those of expert legal or surg¬ 
ical talent, and that the chemist’s brand 
of professional honor and secrecy is 
quite as high as that maintained in either 
of those respected and familiar profes¬ 
sions. 


























